Can't Help but Fall Just to Land
by themostrandomfandom
Summary: "Brittany moves like a cat, all liquid determination. She climbs onto the chaise and crouches but then continues forward. It takes Santana another second to realize what Brittany is doing. Her eyes say it, even under the shadow of the eaves: 'I'm going to kiss you now.'" Brittana spend the summer after their junior year figuring everything out. Mouseverse.
1. May

**I.**

**May**

It's hard not to stare with so much sunlight in the room and with spring tipping over into summer—with just a few more weeks left until this strange, lurching school year concludes, and everything will either be different or it won't be.

It's hard not to stare when Santana wants everything so much but just can't find the words to say.

Santana sits on the edge of Brittany's bed, feet dangling over the carpet. She holds her hands in her lap and tries to mind her eyes as Brittany bops around the room, singing along to the Ke$ha song playing from her iPod speakers, haphazardly packing for their upcoming trip to New York for Show Choir Nationals.

Dust motes float on the afternoon light, riding waves of it like little surfboarders on a big swell. The glossy posters and photographs on Brittany's walls glint with streaks of sheen. Brittany's hair is starting to bleach to its fairest summer blonde, and the bridge of her nose has already begun to freckle though it's not yet June.

Santana's starting to think all about summer and ask herself too many questions.

"Maybe one of our songs will be on iTunes someday," Brittany muses, counting out several balled socks from her dresser drawer and tossing them one by one, basketball style, into the open suitcase sitting on the bed beside Santana. Brittany switches back to singing, _"Oh, oh, oh. We're falling in love..."_

When Brittany misses the suitcase on her last toss, Santana immediately stoops to retrieve the socks and put them where they belong.

"Thanks," Brittany says, dancing over to her closet, where she starts shuffling through her shoes, searching for suitable pairs to wear in the Big Apple. "I mean, 'My Headband' could totally be a Top Twenty hit, right, Santana?"

Santana smiles at Brittany and nods but doesn't say anything.

Brittany carries on. "Do you think people in New York are taller than they are here?" she asks, eyeing a pair of four inch heeled boots.

Santana shrugs, gripping tighter to her own hands.

She doesn't know how tall the people in New York are, but she does know that it's kind of amazing that Brittany even wants to be around her right now, considering everything that's happened between them over the last few months. Anyone else on the face of the planet probably never would have forgiven Santana for being so crazy for so long, but Brittany acts like Santana doesn't even need forgiving—like everything is already cool between them.

It just goes to show that Brittany is perfect.

Santana knows that she should just go with it—that she should just be grateful that everything is so cool and not second-guess it all so much.

But being cool isn't actually in Santana's nature and especially not when it comes to Brittany—or at least not recently.

Over the years, Santana has probably been in Brittany's bedroom about forty-thousand times and then some. Hell, she's even been here since Brittany broke up with Artie—and more than once, too. Still, Santana can't help but feel jittery, being in Brittany's space like this.

She doesn't want to screw it up.

"You're doing that thing again," Brittany complains, looking up from her boots to Santana. She wears a smirk, but her eyes are kind.

Santana starts.

She's doing what thing again? Staring? Should she make an excuse? Or should she say something flirty? Is it okay to flirt right now? What could she even say? Why does she suck so much at flirting when she really wants to flirt? Her grip turns to lead on her own hands, and she stiffens as Brittany rises from the floor, walking over to her on the bed.

She doesn't mean to stare. It's just now that she's said that she's in love with Brittany out loud, it's like she can't help herself anymore.

She never could help herself anyway, really.

"You're doing that thing where you feel loud on the inside so you're quiet on the outside. It makes it so you don't talk, and you just look sort of guilty about something," Brittany clarifies, answering the questions Santana didn't ask out loud.

Brittany sits beside Santana and reaches for Santana's hands, unknotting them from each other with gentle thumbs, holding them still. She rubs the soft spot between Santana's bones, massaging into the muscle.

"It's okay to talk to me, you know," Brittany says playfully, nudging her knees against Santana's. "I mean, I'm still your best friend, right? You didn't replace me with an alien or Margaret Thatcher or something, did you?"

She gives Santana an expectant look.

Santana only just barely remembers to roll her eyes as she smiles. "No," she mumbles. "I didn't replace you, Britt."

Brittany nods but then pushes. "So you'll talk now?"

"Yeah," Santana peeps, melting at Brittany's proximity to her.

Brittany hums, pleased. "Good," she says, "because I like talking to you. And we have to talk if we're going to make this work."

She gives Santana's hands a squeeze before releasing them, rising, and turning back to her closet, oblivious that she just set off a whole chain of questions in Santana's mind like a lit line of firecrackers.

Make _what _work? Their friendship? Or their maybe-something-more-than-friendship? Because Santana isn't really sure where she and Brittany stand at the moment. Brittany broke up with Artie, and then she and Santana slept together once after Coach Sylvester's sister's funeral, but Santana doesn't know whether any of that means that she and Brittany are more than friendsor not.

They used to sleep together once upon a time, back before Santana confessed her love to Brittany, and they were "just friends" back then, so they could just as easily be "just friends" right now, too—and especially considering that Santana still isn't out yet.

Of course, Brittany hasn't said anything about Santana coming out since the prom, really. But, then again, Brittany also hasn't said anything about her and Santana dating anytime soon, either.

The bad news is that Brittany hasn't really said much of anything about all the stuff that happened between her and Santana leading up to the prom. The good news is that she and Santana have been hanging out a lot lately and that things have been really great whenever they're together.

Like, they've kissed a couple of times and that's been _more than great_,and sometimes Brittany gets this look in her eyes when she smiles at Santana that's actually like the best thing in the entire free world.

Santana would straight up pay someone to tell her what it all means if she weren't so sure it would jinx everything if she were to ask.

"What do you think?" Brittany says, picking up the heeled boots again.

"I think that you should take them," Santana says, sounding more certain than she feels.

Brittany looks her up and down. "Are you going to wear heels?"

"Totally," Santana says. She knows she should add something else. She tries for a joke. "I can't let you be that much taller than me."

Brittany fake pouts. "But I like being taller than you," she says. "You're just like a little jellybean or something."

"A jellybean?" Santana repeats, melting even though it's silly.

"Mhm," Brittany confirms, pursing her lips together. She looks like she wants to say something else, but she doesn't. Instead, she brings the boots over to the suitcase, cramming them inside atop all her other clothes and belongings. "Help me shut this?" she asks, tugging the flap into place and holding it so that Santana can work the zipper.

"Anything for you," Santana blurts out.

Brittany just smiles at her. "See?" she says. "I like it when you talk."


	2. June

**II.**

**June**

In the last week before June changes to July, they're at the mall again, waiting out a rainstorm that's lasted all day. They've already loaded their purses with shoplifted accessories and even a new bra, in Santana's case. They've also scoped out all the stores, even the ones they never actually shop in, and sat on a bench making fun of the people passing them for so long that they've run out of funny voices to assign to their targets. Everyone inside the mall seems a little restless. Thunder grumbles outside.

"God," Santana says, rolling her eyes at the storm as she and Brittany split a pretzel between them.

"We could go to a movie," Brittany suggests. She knows there's nothing out they want to see, though. Santana shrugs. Brittany searches around them for some new form of entertainment. "Or we could—," her eyes fall on a small play area with several mechanical animal rides clustered in a circle. There's also a photo booth. "—get our photos taken!" She looks to Santana to check her reaction.

It's not like they've never taken photos together before. Honestly, Brittany has photos of them putty plastered all over her walls—her mother gave up trying to put a stop to Brittany's collage project years ago—and Santana has two whole folders filled with digital photos of them on her computer desktop, one dedicated to shots from when they were little and one to things they've done in high school.

But the idea of taking photos now feels different, just like everything they've done together this summer feels different.

For a second, Brittany thinks Santana might say no. This is sort of a big thing, and they didn't list it in their plans. She searches Santana's face and sees fear in Santana's eyes but also something else, too—something deep and trusting.

"Okay," Santana says, her voice fluttery at first. Then, stronger, "Let's do it, Britt. I'll pay."

Honestly, the booth is barely big enough for two people; Brittany wonders how the football players do it when they squish in there with their girlfriends.

_Girlfriends._

Brittany and Santana maneuver around each other until, at the last moment, Brittany decides she knows what to do—they have the curtains drawn anyway—and pulls Santana onto her lap.

At first, Santana's eyebrows raise, and she looks around, irises wide and coffee dark, frantic, her whole body tensing. But then Santana seems to realize that no one can see inside the booth—that no one can see her and Brittany, not even their feet because the curtain's too long.

She relaxes, settling back against Brittany's hips.

Brittany takes Santana's arm and wraps it around her shoulder. Santana feels warm all over, like a hot rock, and smells like the three or four different perfume samples they tried on in Macy's, one layered over the top of the other, floral and ambered and sharp, but also like herself under all the other scents.

Unmistakable organic Santana.

It takes a minute for the girls to figure out how to pay for and order the transaction—the machine won't accept the five dollar bill they offer it right away; they have to flatten it out over the corner of their bench before it will even fit in the slot—but they don't mind. Now that Santana feels safe in the photo booth, she actually seems pretty excited about everything.

"Do you want them to be stickers?" Santana asks, finger hovering over the icon on the touch screen.

"No."

"Six or eight?"

"Um, you pick."

"Eight, then. What do you want for the frame? There's no frame, Polaroid, outer space, cowboy shit, jungle vines, and, er... hearts... um, like valentines."

Brittany checks Santana's reaction. She thinks she knows which frame Santana wants, but she doesn't want to embarrass Santana or spook Santana away from this. Santana bites her bottom lip, nervous. Sometimes she's so hopeless and cute that Brittany wants to kiss her silly.

"Does that say 'sweethearts'?" Brittany asks, nodding towards the last option on the page.

"Yeah," Santana says.

Brittany nods, and Santana tries to suppress a grin, but when Brittany full-on smiles, she does, too, and pushes the button with a flourish.

"God, we're cheesy," Santana says, heat rising to her face.

"Yup!" Brittany agrees, and they both laugh.

Instructions flash on the screen, and Santana mumbles them to Brittany. Too soon, a three second warning plays, and then the red light that they thought was the camera lens blinks. Now the girls have no idea where to look. Santana's laughter rings out through the booth, long and clear, and Brittany decides to take advantage of it, burying her fingers into Santana's sides, pinching Santana where she knows that Santana is ticklish. Santana squeals just as the red light flashes.

The first three clicks catch Santana jerking away from Brittany's touch, half-shrieking, half-laughing, and then slapping Brittany's hands away while Brittany tries to rein her back in and make her sit again.

The next one gets Santana pouting, then Brittany leaning in to kiss her cheek, Santana melting into it. There's a brief second when Brittany catches sight of fear behind Santana's eyes; they've never kissed in a photo before, even on the cheek. The most they've done are those kissy faces, cheeks side by side, lips comically pursed but nowhere near to touching.

Santana doesn't seem to feel afraid the same way she would have felt last year, though; Brittany knows that because, for the next photo, Santana turns suddenly so that Brittany's lips slip from her face to her lips. It's not quite perfect—they're a little too close together for it to really be graceful—but just the idea that they're doing it makes everything in Brittany bloom and speed.

They don't even notice the last warning flash. Instead, they pull away from each other, smiling. Santana doesn't look so helpless anymore. Brittany can feel her ears flushing pink. For a second, she and Santana stare at each other, panting as if they've just finished a race or made love.

Santana is the first to look away. She wears a shy smile. "One for me and one for you," she says as the machine prints out two 2x4 rolls of tiny photos, spitting them from the slot into her hand. She admires their handiwork: the tangle of limbs and brightness in their eyes, the goofy grins, her own dimples. The kiss.

"What are you going to do with yours?" Brittany asks. She knows she can't hang these photos on her wall with the rest of the collage or at least not yet—not until Santana is ready.

"I think I'm gonna put it in my purse," Santana says, trying to sound like it's no big deal, "—like in my billfold. It's got that little picture-holder thing."

Brittany smirks, "You're old-fashioned sometimes." Before Santana can say anything, she adds, "It's adorable."

For a moment, both girls smile at each other so widely that Santana's dimples show again. Santana has got that shy look back in her eyes. Bashful Santana; no one would believe Brittany if she told.

As far as figuring stuff out goes, this could be pretty okay.

"All right," Santana says finally, laughing. "Let's get out of here. Let's go home."


	3. July

**III.**

**July**

One day, when they have Brittany's house to themselves, they have a really serious conversation over twin bowls of macaroni and cheese—Santana's with ketchup because that's how she likes it. They talk for the first time ever about Santana's parents and what they can and can't say to them.

It ends with Santana crying so hard that her sobs run silent, and her breath gives out. After too many seconds, a single peep ekes from her like a bubble escaping a bottle submerged in a full tub. It's a small cry, but it seems like all she can do: just a tiny, jagged vowel sound. Every inch of her shakes, and she shuts her eyes against the room. When Brittany gets to her, her skin feels hot like fever. Santana latches on to Brittany's arms and refuses to let go.

Brittany presses kisses into Santana's chest and neck, kneeling in front of her. She wraps herself around Santana's waist, pushing herself against Santana's ribs. There's a rattle in Santana's chest.

Before she can stop herself, Brittany's crying, just like Santana. "Oh, Santana, I'm sorry," she says. "Sweetheart, sweetheart."

Santana turns in her chair and presses against Brittany, molding around her like it's the end of the world and all they have is holding each other. Brittany smells the saline on their faces. She knows Santana's heart is breaking because hers is breaking, too.

They both cry for a long time, until Santana gets the hiccups. The clock over the microwave tells them that seventeen minutes have passed, but it feels like they've been crying for so much longer. They're a real mess. Brittany wipes her nose on one of the abrasive paper napkins from the table. Santana's mascara has run all the way down her face; she's got a track of watery black curled over the underside of her chin. Every few seconds, her shoulders hop with a little breathy gasp.

"Do you want me to warm up your bowl?" Brittany asks, noticing that Santana hasn't finished her lunch. Santana nods, miserable, and stifles another hiccup.

After a long minute, microwave humming, Santana says, softly, "I like that one: 'sweetheart.' I've always liked it, Britt."

They don't mention Santana's parents again after that because there really isn't anything more to say about them. Santana and Brittany have each other. That's all.

Every once in a while, Santana will get a pinched look on her face when they pull into her driveway and she shifts the car into park, staring up at her big, hushed house, but nothing really changes right away.

Sometimes the girls still help Santana's mother put away groceries when she comes home from the store.

In moments where Santana gets too quiet, Brittany kisses the underside of her chin and smoothes her hair away from her face, whispering, "Hey, beautiful girl," and Santana opens to her like a flower unfolding toward the sun.

It's funny, Brittany realizes, how quietly things change sometimes. By the end of the month, she and Santana almost never spend time indoors except after sundown, when the bugs swarm the air in such great number that not even Citronella candles can scare them all away. Santana's parents travel to Philadelphia for a three day medical conference. They ask if Santana wants to go along, but she says no; she'd rather stay with Brittany. They tell her okay, but no monkey business. They think they're joking, but Santana looks so heartsick when they say it that Brittany has to stop herself from kissing Santana right there in front of them to make it all better.

That weekend, Brittany's dad barbeques steaks on the grill for the whole family, including Santana. Santana and Brittany share one filet between them. No one says anything when Santana reaches over and wipes a stray spot of Worcestershire sauce from Brittany's bottom lip. No one says anything when Santana and Brittany drink out of the same Shirley Temple—Brittany's mom's treat—and Santana insists that Brittany take the Maraschino cherry at the end.

That night, as they get ready for bed, Santana asks, "Are you guys going camping again this year?" rubbing moisturizer into her cheeks.

Brittany nods, sipping from the glass of water she keeps on the nightstand. She swallows. "I think so. Dad really likes the state park. You should come, sweetheart."

When she looks up, Santana stares at her in total reverence, her hand paused halfway between the jar of moisturizer balanced on her thigh and her face. "Okay," she says softly, capping the jar and setting it aside on the desktop.

"You okay?" Brittany asks.

"Yeah."


	4. August

**IV.**

**August**

Though it isn't night, storm clouds cast the yard dark, and rain stains the concrete around the swimming pool in slate. Santana presses fingertips to the glass door and feels it cooler than the air inside the kitchen. Still, she doesn't go for clothes warmer than the sweats she already wears, and Brittany doesn't go either. Brittany's breath blooms and unblooms a fog flower on the lips of her own dim and backlit reflection on the door.

"We might get wet," Santana worries.

Brittany shrugs, placid. "Then we get wet," she says, reaching for the door handle and sliding the door open.

The girls traipse onto the back deck on cautious stocking feet. Through the eaves of the house protect them and the wood underfoot from the raindrops, it's still difficult not to feel as if they've stepped into someplace wild—and especially not when a shock of thunder whipcracks, violent, directly above the buckeye tree beside Santana's bedroom window, just a few strides away from where they stand.

Brittany slides the door shut quickly behind them so as not to let a draft inside Santana's house, and Santana shrieks the instant the door sinks closed into place, startled by a gust of wind that rips across the surface of the swimming pool like claws.

"Shh," Brittany warns, not angry but cautious. She glances up at the house, to rooms that she and Santana cannot see, to Santana's parents, one in the study, the other in the master bedroom when last she and Santana checked.

Santana's parents wouldn't mind Santana and Brittany storm-watching, but they might mind other things, eventually.

Brittany tiptoes to one of the deck chairs tucked snug beneath the eaves and settles herself down into it, her legs forming into a graceful, folded pretzel beneath her weight. Santana follows suit, taking over one of the pool chaises, curling into it like a cat, her feet tucked safely under her legs.

The clouds move like galloping in the stratosphere, and the rain beats down the grass and dots the fence in teardrops.

For a long while, the girls sit still, in awe of Midwestern summer. When another whipcrack snaps just above the house, Santana jolts, and Brittany extends a hand to her. Santana sets her own hand into Brittany's without looking away from the storm, and Brittany's palm envelopes her palm with human heat.

When wind peels another sheet of water from the pool, Santana shudders, maybe because the wind chills her, maybe because the storm is so awesome that it makes her feel small. For a second, it is easy to believe that all her problems, which usually seem so vast and insurmountable, are actually trifling.

Maybe Santana's shudder is what prompts Brittany to move, but, whatever the case, Santana glimpses Brittany shifting at her side from the corner of her eye and feels Brittany's palm adjust against her own. Suddenly Brittany is out of the deck chair, joining Santana on the chaise. The chaise sits against a corner of the deck, pushed against a corner of the house. Santana scoots back against the house to allow Brittany room at her side.

Brittany moves like a cat, all liquid determination. She climbs onto the chaise and crouches but then continues forward. It takes Santana another second to realize what Brittany is doing.

Her eyes say it, even under the shadow of the eaves.

_I'm going to kiss you now_.

Brittany's hand fits under Santana's chin, her thumb against Santana's cheek. She lifts Santana's face to hers, and Santana's body stills, waits, Santana's eyes fluttering closed, breath holing up within her breast. At first, Santana's lips remain just slightly parted like rose petals in an early bloom, but then Brittany's mouth seals over Santana's, and Santana locks to Brittany. Their noses nudge each other's faces, and all they can hear is rain applauding upon hard earth and the sounds of each other's lips sussurating together.

Santana feels Brittany—a strength in her, a heat, more of that wildness from before.

The kiss starts at Santana's lips and spreads out through her everywhere, lifting something deep inside her. Brittany kisses her hard like the rain.

But then Brittany goes to deepen the kiss, making another gasping lean forward, and suddenly Santana startles, remembering her parents upstairs in their rooms, wondering if either one of them has a window open to hear the rain, if they could hear other things.

Santana and Brittany usually don't kiss while they're home.

A little whimper escapes Santana's lips, and she pulls back, frightened.

"Okay, um—," she says, her lips still half upon Brittany's lips, Brittany's hand still guiding her face.

Brittany still leans forward, still seeks another kiss, a half-second behind the times. The moment doesn't break for her until thunder clatters like cymbals above the eaves. Only then does she recede, closing her mouth, backing away. She stares at Santana with cloudy eyes, and Santana glances—like Brittany did before—up at the house, to the unseen rooms, to the unseen people.

"What if they hear us?" Santana peeps, the ghost of the kiss still on her mouth, and her heart suddenly in her throat for more reasons than just a few.

Brittany shrugs, placid. "Not if we're quiet. Not over the rain," she says.

But she doesn't press. A pause.

Her hand still lingers at Santana's face, her thumb cradling Santana's jaw. She glances at Santana's mouth.

Her eyes say it, even under the shadow of the eaves.

_I want to kiss you again._

But.

"It's your choice," Brittany says. "If you don't want to, we don't have to."

Her hand moves from Santana's face back to her own lap, and her shoulders relax, her body standing down, curling away, making room for Santana to decide.

A whole summer has passed, and Santana still has no idea about so many things. She feels certain that Brittany loves her just like she loves Brittany, but she doesn't know what that means—if there are words for what they are to each other, if there will ever be words. She still feels so cowardly, unready in some ways but more than ready in others. She still can't imagine what her parents will say when they finally know, if they ever do.

Santana licks her lips, and rain pops against the surface of the swimming pool, creating a symphony of little splashes. Thunder sounds past the house.

"Britt," Santana says.

She tries to say it with her eyes.

_I choose, I choose, I choose._

It happens in reverse from the first time. Santana reaches to lift Brittany's chin. She moves forward like the thunder, like the rolling of the clouds. And suddenly she's in Brittany's lap, curled over her, warming both of them by her heat. Her face is so close to Brittany's, and the rain behind them intensifies, and the wind, and they kiss.

Santana seals her mouth over Brittany's, their faces pressed together. She takes in Brittany's last exhalation and kisses her deep and slow, vaguely aware as the pulse at Brittany's neck picks up just under her hand. She opens her mouth again, and Brittany follows her lead. She slips her tongue past Brittany's lips, Brittany's teeth, and for a moment she forgets the storm.

Santana kisses Brittany and knows exactly where she is.


End file.
